The Bird's Nest

by Shirley Jackson

let my reader who is puzzled by my awkward explanations close his eyes for no more than two minutes, and see if he does not find himself suddenly not a compact human being at all, but only a consciousness on a sea of sound and touch; it is only with the eyes open that a corporeal form returns, and assembles itself firmly around the hard core of sight.

he figured just the way everyone else always did—when you have trouble with Morgen’s pretty sister, get Morgen to take care of it for you.

“Each life, I think,” said the doctor, “asks the devouring of other lives for its own continuance; the radical aspect of ritual sacrifice, the performance of a group, its great step ahead, was in organization; sharing the victim was so eminently practical.”